 Announcing Our New Website! |
 We are so pleased to announce the debut of our new website! The bigger, better version of our original site, you can now order books online from us. And that includes eBooks at affordable prices!
Now you can support your local indie bookstore, while also enjoying the convenience of shopping from the comfort of your home or office. We hope that you will let us connect you with a great book... please check us out today and see how easy it is! And please do let us know what you think of our new site, we appreciate any feedback you may have. |
| Pen on Fire Salon with Katie Arnoldi and Marisa Matarazzo |
This monthly salon, hosted by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, features authors, literary agents, and others involved in the field of writing. Set in the atmospheric Scape Gallery in Corona del Mar, the salon is a mecca for literary devotees who listen to readings, take part in discussions, and attend book signings.
Join the salon on Tuesday, May 17 at 7 pm when authors Katie Arnoldi and Marisa Matarazzo visit to discuss their new books. They will join Barbara DeMarco-Barrett in conversation.
 Katie Arnoldi has published three novels. The first, Chemical Pink, was a national bestseller. Her second novel The Wentworths squeaked onto the Los Angeles Times bestseller list as did her most recent book, Point Dume, which was released in May 2010. Katie was the 1992 Southern California Bodybuilding Champion. She was also a competitive longboard surfer, an enthusiastic backcountry survivalist, fanatic scuba diver and a fierce shark advocate. She is currently writing a book about human trafficking, drug cartels, intoxicants and the destructive power of money.
 The daughter of a painter and a linguist, Marisa Matarazzo grew up in Los Angeles. She attended Harvard-Westlake high school and pursued acting as a teenager. She earned her BA from Yale, where she received the Wallace Prize for fiction writing, the Jodie Foster Scholarship, the Arthur Willis Colton Scholarship, and was a two-time recipient of the Elmore A. Willets Prize for fiction. Earning her MFA from UC Irvine, she was the recipient of the Dorothy and Donald Strauss Endowed Thesis Fellowship. Her stories have been published in Faultline, Hobart, and fivechapters.com. Drenched, an interconnected group of short stories, will be our focus during the salon.
$20.00 includes nibbles, sips and cake. Advance tickets are required. Walk-ins are discouraged as seating is limited. Tickets are available through the Pen on Fire website. |
| Event with Carol Wallace |
Please join us on Thursday, May 26 at 6 pm for an event with Carol Wallace, author of the novel Leaving Van Gogh. Carol will read an excerpt from her book, answer questions, and sign copies. This event is free of charge.
 Leaving Van Gogh is a historical novel about the relationship between Vincent Van Gogh and Dr. Paul Gachet. Van Gogh arrived in Auvers, France in May of 1890, hoping that country life would improve his mental health. Weekend resident Dr. Gachet, who was a Parisian medical man with a history of treating mental illness, was keenly interested in the art of his day. He should have been just the man to help Vincent, but Van Gogh's initial judgment was skeptical.
Van Gogh's attitude softened and the men became friends. Vincent even painted Dr. Gachet, producing a portrait that is famous today. But as we know, Van Gogh ended up a suicide, so perhaps his initial assessment of Gachet was correct. Leaving Van Gogh is narrated by Dr. Gachet, who saw Van Gogh as a painter, a puzzle, a project. It is a novel about friendship, genius, madness, and the art that bound these two men together.
 Carol Wallace is the author of numerous previous books, including The Official Preppy Handbook, which she co-authored. Leaving Van Gogh is her first historical novel. A graduate of Princeton University, Wallace received an M.A. in art history in 2006. The research for her M.A. thesis provided the foundation for Leaving Van Gogh. Wallace lives in New York.
|
| Men Alive Event |
Please join us on Thursday, June 2 at 6 pm for an event with members of Men Alive, the Orange County Gay Men's Chorus. They have published a 10 year anniversary cookbook called Dishing With Men Alive, which is filled with delicious recipes. Some are treasured family keepsakes and some are new, but they all reflect the love of good cooking.
You won't want to miss this event that also occurs on Art Walk night, as refreshments and entertainment will be provided. Men Alive is about people making great music and music making great people-- we hope you'll be able to attend! |
| Poetry Reading with Colette LaBouff Atkinson & Collier Nogues |
Please join us on Sunday, June 5 at 4 pm for a poetry reading with Colette LaBouff Atkinson and Collier Nogues. Both authors will read from their latest works and also take time to answer questions.
 Colette LaBouff Atkinson is the author of Mean, a collection of prose poems. Her prose has appeared in the following: Santa Monica Review, River Teeth, Seneca Review, Los Angeles Times, Babble, The Rumpus, and The Morning News. She is currently Acting Director at the International Center for Writing and Translation at UC Irvine, and has taught poetry recently at Pitzer College and UC Irvine.
Collier Nogues's first book of poems, On the Other Side, Blue, was published in April 2011. She has been a MacDowell Fellow and a Ucross Foundation Resident, and was recently the Fishtrap Writer-in-Residence for two years in Enterprise, Oregon. Her poems were a special feature of the Spring 2010 issue of Pleiades, and other poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Jubilat, The Massachusetts Review, Blackbird, and The Pinch, among other journals. She's a graduate of UC Irvine's MFA Program in Poetry, and lives in Long Beach. |
| New in Paperback | |
Kathryn Stockett
$16.00
Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who's always taken orders quietly, but lately she's unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She's full of ambition, but without a husband, she's considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town.
Brady Udall
$15.95
Golden Richards, husband to four wives, father to twenty-eight children, is having the mother of all midlife crises. His construction business is failing, his family has grown into an overpopulated mini-dukedom beset with insurrection and rivalry, and he is done in with grief. Beautifully written, keenly observed, and ultimately redemptive, The Lonely Polygamist is an unforgettable story of an American family --with its inevitable dysfunctionality, heartbreak, and comedy -- pushed to its outer limits. |
| Never Forget | |
Ying-Ying Chang
$29.95
Iris Chang's best-selling book The Rape of Nanking forever changed the way we view the Second World War in Asia. Her mother, Ying-Ying, provides an enlightened and nuanced look at her daughter, from Iris' home-made childhood newspaper, to her early years as a journalist and later, as a promising young historian, her struggles with her son's autism and her tragic suicide. The Woman Who Could Not Forget cements Iris' legacy as one of the most extraordinary minds of her generation and reveals the depth and beauty of the bond between a mother and daughter.
Iris Chang
$16.00
It all began with a photo of a river choked with the bodies of hundreds of Chinese civilians that shook Iris Chang to her core. Who were these people? Why had this happened and how could their story have been lost to history? A few short years later, Chang revealed this "second Holocaust" to the world. The Japanese atrocities against the people of Nanking were so extreme that a Nazi party leader based in China actually petitioned Hitler to ask the Japanese government to stop the massacre. But who was this woman that single-handedly swept away years of silence, secrecy and shame? |
| TV Legends | |
Betty White
$25.95
Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, seven-time Emmy winner Betty White's wit and wisdom take center stage as she tackles topics like friendship, romantic love, aging, television, fans, love for animals, and the brave new world of celebrity. If You Ask Me mixes her thoughtful observations with humorous stories from a seven- decade career in Hollywood. Featuring all-new material, with a focus on the past fifteen years of her life, this book is funny, sweet, and to the point -- just like Betty White.
Susan Lucci
$25.99
In her long-awaited memoir, this very private actress, wife, mother, daughter, grandmother, sister, friend, and entrepreneur pulls back the curtain to reveal her story. Susan, like Erica Kane, has undergone a metamorphosis many times. All My Life shares the stories of those transformations: starring in roles on television and stage, and building a successful career as an entrepreneur with a signature line of products.
As charming, down-to-earth, and compelling as the woman whose story it tells, All My Life reminds us of the power of dreams and how we can find the courage and tenacity to make them come true. |
| Latest World War II Histories | |
Erik Larson
$26.00
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.
War in the Ruins
Edward G. Longacre
$28.00
In War in the Ruins, Edward G. Longacre recounts this neglected but essential chapter in the history of World War II, describing the 100th Division's swift but grueling advance through the Vosges Mountains, their Rhine River crossing, the assault on the historic Maginot Line, and the ominous approach to Heilbronn. The author then describes the entire bitter battle and its aftermath, using private letters, journals, German and American action reports, and other primary source material, to establish War in the Ruins as an essential volume in the history of World War II in Europe. |
|
